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KNX TUTOR SEMINAR
6 KNX Easy Installation Principles
6.1 General
ETS is the best known and by far most used way to design and program a KNX
installation. This is called System Mode (S-Mode). KNX also offers alternatives: KNX
devices can also be configured without ETS. This is called Easy Mode (E-Mode) and the
devices are E-Mode devices. There exist three submodes: Controller Mode (Ctrl-Mode),
Push Button Mode (PB-Mode) and Logical Tag Extended Mode (LTE-Mode).
6.2 E-Mode channels
KNX guarantees the compatibility and runtime Interworking independently of the
configuration mode by fixing elementary functions in so-called Functional Blocks. These
specify the behaviour and coding (Datapoint Types), but still allow for a certain freedom.
LTE-Mode even directly bases on Functional Blocks for the description, linking and
communication between its devices.
Ctrl-Mode and PB-Mode however base their description and linking on a standard
selection of Datapoints and Parameters of one or more Functional Blocks. These are
called E-Mode Channels. Every Group Object additionally gets one of more identifiers that
specify its functionality (e.g. switch, time, temperature). These are called Connection
Codes. During the configuration, Group Objects with the same Connection Code can be
linked.
6.2.1 Ctrl-Mode
In Ctrl-Mode, one single, central controller takes over the role of ETS. This controller
assigns a unique Individual Address to each E-Mode device that it finds. A free Individual
Address is searched in the same way as ETS checks whether an Individual Address is
occupied or not. Next, of all devices, the device capabilities (E-Mode Channels and
parameters) are read out and shown on the display, so that the installer can select the
functionality and can indicate which channels should be linked. The controller decides on
the Group Addresses and parameter values and downloads the devices, again much in a
way as done by ETS, as shown in the underneath figure.
Home and Building Management Systems KNX Association
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